WHOLE GERMAN FRONT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 September 1943, Page 4

WHOLE GERMAN FRONT

CRUMBLING IN RUSSIA EFFECT OF PLANNED SOVIET BLOWS PORTENTS OF GREATER THINGS TO COME. CAN NAZI ARMIES RETREAT IN TIME? (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.55 a.m.) LONDON, August 31. From the Smolensk front southwards to the Sea of Azov, the Rus? sian offensive is smashing forward in a series of thrusts, co-ordinated under a vast master plan. This is becoming increasingly obvious from the succession of orders of the day and communiques in which

Marshal Stalin announces the cap-

ture of keypoints hundreds of miles apart, but correlated with the Russian objective of freeing the Ukraine.

An order of the day by Stalin announced that the Russians in the Sevsk area had retaken Rylsk and broken through into the Northern Ukraine. An official Moscow announcement states that the Russians have captured Valki. Communiques show that massive blows against strategic points along the front are timed to give the hard-pressed Germans no opportunity to move strategic reserves, or to transfer forces from point to point. They also indicate that the Russians are now concentrating thd strength of their Air Force, armoured units and Army against the wider objective of smashing German military power on the Eastern front and forcing a victory.

Moscow announced that an offensive in the Smolensk direction had broken through strong fortifications on a 30 mile front and advanced ten to 19 miles. The Russians, attacking another strongly fortified zone in the Sevsk area, smashed through on a 63 mile front, drove irresistibly forward 38 miles into the Northern Ukraine. Advances in the Kharkov area and an official statement that the Russians are completing mopping-up in the Taganrog area complete the picture of vast, united offensive operations. Reuter’s military writer says: “It is clear now that the whole German front is crumbling. Orel, Kharkov and Taganrog are merely portents of the bigger development in the offing. Bryansk and Poltava are already threatened. Smolensk, formerly Hitler’s headquarters and one of the greatest prizes of all, is almost within Russian hands. The prospect of a German retreat along the whole line is no longer remote, but the real question is! Will the Germans be able to get behind the Dnieper in time?” MOST REMARKABLE RANGE <2, SPEED OF SOVIET ASSAULTS. GERMANS EVERYWHERE FALLING BACK. (Received This Day, 12.45 p.m.) LONDON, August 31. “The great Russian victory at Yelnia (east-south-east of Smolensk) is doubly remarkable,” says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. “It not only represents a. tremendous wedge driven through the main German defensive line covering their centre, but has been achieved when great Russian armies were carrying out an immense and successful offensives elsewhere. “The might and resources disclosed in these operations are astonishing. The Wehrmacht, which once deemed itself invincible, is falling back and abandoning position after position, even in the most strongly fortified regions. It is most remarkable that the rate of progress of the Russian advance seems to be accelerating almost daily.”